the in-flight entertainment system, which featured a live view of the aircraft from a tail-mounted camera. The digital stream clearly showed a much more literal stream of fuel pouring from the left wing and into the aircraft’s wake, which was also visible with the naked eye from the lower deck. Johnson proceeded down to check for himself, at which point he also observed for the first time that there were two gaping holes in the top of the left wing, surrounded by jagged metal, where the turbine disk fragments had exited.
According to Check Captain David Evans, the cabin crew were concerned that so many passengers were watching the live feed from the tail camera, but in a collective decision, the pilots elected not to turn it off because, in their view, the feed suddenly cutting out would probably be more alarming than anything that could be seen on it.
I appreciate this part. If I were ever in a similar situation, I'd want to be able to see what's going on. Suddenly cutting the feed would send me straight into a panic.
This flight had a new system to allow passengers to see what the pilots saw. There's a chance that the passengers got to see the panic in the cockpit and watch their fates coming.
I have seen claims that this caused such systems to be avoided for a while.
That's a nasty crash, but I feel like having one wing stall & the plane roll past 90° from below 500 ft AGL would be equally traumatic whether or not you could see the cockpit view.
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I appreciate this part. If I were ever in a similar situation, I'd want to be able to see what's going on. Suddenly cutting the feed would send me straight into a panic.
Infamously, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191#A...
This flight had a new system to allow passengers to see what the pilots saw. There's a chance that the passengers got to see the panic in the cockpit and watch their fates coming.
I have seen claims that this caused such systems to be avoided for a while.
That's a nasty crash, but I feel like having one wing stall & the plane roll past 90° from below 500 ft AGL would be equally traumatic whether or not you could see the cockpit view.